


Shine Together in the Darkness

by Rainne



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Artist Steve Rogers, Bucky is a veteran of Afghanistan, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Prosthetics, Skinny!Steve, at least it wasn't HYDRA that took Bucky's arm this time....?, gift exchange fic, offscreen (past) death of minor character, updating daily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 11:43:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1856820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainne/pseuds/Rainne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The weight of the world<br/>is love.<br/>Under the burden<br/>of solitude,<br/>under the burden<br/>of dissatisfaction</p><p>the weight,<br/>the weight we carry<br/>is love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weirdlittlecookie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weirdlittlecookie/gifts).



> This story was written for Tumblr user az26 (weirdlittlecookie) in the [Star Spangled Exchange](http://starspangledexchange.tumblr.com/). The prompt request was for fluff, angst, and/or AU (hopefully I hit all three), and pre-serum Steve with Bucky.
> 
> The title comes from Allen Ginsburg's poem [Song](http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/song-3/).
> 
> I'd like to extend special thanks to Secondalto and Citymusings for their tireless beta work, Aenaria for her special and necessary guidance about the inner workings of modern Brooklyn, and Feelschat for cheerleading and listening to me rant.
> 
> Please note that this is not a work in progress; it is complete. There are four chapters; I will, according to my own personal tradition, post a chapter a day until the end.

When Bucky Barnes opened the door of his garden-level Park Slope apartment, the first thing he noticed was the smell of barbecued chicken that filled the air. The second thing he noticed was the sound of music: specifically, that New Agey crap that his husband, Steve Rogers, liked to listen to when he was deep in his creative groove. Bucky considered going down the hall to tell Steve that he was home, but he decided against it; if past experience proved anything, it was that he'd likely find the workroom draped in plastic and Steve naked and covered in clay.

Instead, he made his way into the galley kitchen, following his nose. The crock pot sat out on the counter, chicken leg quarters cooking away merrily in barbecue sauce; he grabbed the tongs and opened the lid, turning the pieces over quickly before putting the lid back down again. There was a note lying on the other side of the crock pot; it read, _chicken will be ready at six; could you make some rice?_ With a smile, Bucky pulled out a package of Minute Rice and checked the clock. Five forty-five; he put the Minute Rice back and pulled out a box of Rice-a-Roni instead. Once the rice was minding its own business, he meandered to the upstairs door - technically, what used to be the basement door, when the building was a single family dwelling back in his grandpa's childhood - to check for messages. 

Bucky considered himself to be one lucky son of a bitch in more ways than one. He'd lost an arm in Afghanistan, sure, but there were a lot of guys who lost more than that. At least he managed to come home under his own power and with his head mostly on straight. And he had a home to come home to. His great-grandfather had paid cash for the Park Slope brownstone back in 1910, and his father had subdivided it into apartments in the early 1980s, before Bucky was born. Now it was Bucky's. And Steve's.

Bucky was an only child; when his parents died only a month after his eighteenth birthday, Bucky had gone a little wild out of grief. After very nearly flunking out of his senior year of high school, he'd joined the Army in a last-ditch bid to get himself turned back around. When he got his orders and discovered they were sending him to Afghanistan, he'd spent a long night up on the roof, examining his life and everything in it. The next morning, he'd called Steve.

“ _I need you to move in over here.”_

“ _Bucky, we've had this conversation; I'm fine where I am for now, and we're not ready for that yet. I know we've been dating since junior year, but - ”_

“ _They're shippin' me out, Steve.”_

_There was a long silence on the line. Then Steve spoke. “I'll be there in fifteen.”_

_When he arrived - already red and blotchy in the face but struggling to keep it together - Bucky simply folded him up in his arms and sat on the couch, holding him, for a long time. “If I thought it'd do any good,” he murmured into Steve's baby-fine hair, “I'd tell 'em about you and dare 'em to kick me out.”_

“ _Bucky,” Steve said, his voice strained and desperate._

_Bucky sighed, squeezing Steve a little tighter. “I know. I know, Stevie,” he murmured. He palmed Steve's cheek. “So, I got like three weeks before I gotta go,” he said. “I figure that's enough time to get everything arranged and settled.”_

“ _What do you mean?”_

“ _I mean,” he said, pressing his forehead against Steve's, “you know as well as I do I could get my ass blown up over there. If that happens - ”_

“ _It won't!” Steve's grip on his shoulders became fierce. “It won't!”_

“ _If it does,” Bucky continued, his voice firm, “I want to make sure you're taken care of. I don't want you livin' in some shithole, takin' every damn minimum wage job you can get to try to make ends meet until you get your big break. I want you taken care of. I want you here.”_

“ _Buck,” Steve said softly, “what are you sayin'?”_

_Bucky swallowed. “I'm sayin',” he said softly, “if we were married, then if anything happened to me over there, then the house would be yours. I want you to move in here and take care of the place for me while I'm gone - I'd rather have you do it than have to depend on some shyster real estate place - and if I die over there, I don't want you gettin' put out in favor of some damn cousin I've never even met or something. I want it all to be yours. The rents would be enough for you to get by just fine until you start sellin' art pieces.”_

“ _But Bucky, I - ”_

“ _Steve,” Bucky interrupted him. “I love you. And I was gonna ask you anyway.” He released Steve, crossing the living room to the built-in bookshelves. He opened up the little Moroccan box that sat on one of the shelves, pulling out a tiny box of black velvet. “I had this for awhile. Been tryin' to work up my nerve. Thought maybe I'd wait until Christmas, but now...” He shrugged. “Don't look like I'm gonna be here for Christmas. So, what do you say?” Crossing back to the couch, he went smoothly to one knee and popped the box open, revealing a simple gold band. “Will you marry me, Stevie?”_

_Steve stared at him for a long moment, then slid forward off the couch onto his knees, wrapping his arms around Bucky's neck. “Yes,” he whispered. “But I swear to God, Bucky, if you get blown up over there, I'm gonna kill you.”_

_As he predicted, he missed Christmas... but he was home by Easter. Well, most of him was, anyway._

Shaking himself out of memories, Bucky pulled the upstairs door open and checked the message board hanging there on the side of the interior staircase. It was blank - none of the tenants needed anything repaired today. Always good news. He shut the door again, turning the lock, and headed back down into the kitchen. By the time he got there, the music had been turned off (not that it helped; he already had “Orinoco Flow” stuck in his head, and it would likely be there for days) and the shower was running.

He went into the kitchen and started serving up plates; by the time he was ready to put them on the table, Steve was there. Still damp from his shower, he slid around Bucky in the narrow galley and paused to press a kiss onto Bucky's shoulder blade before reaching up into the cabinets for glasses. He filled them with lemonade from the pitcher in the refrigerator, then brought them to the table, pausing for a proper kiss before dropping into his chair. “How was the day?” he asked.

“Good,” Bucky replied. “Figured out what the problem was with the lighting.”

“Oh, good,” Steve said. “The show will go on!”

“Yeah. Opens Friday night. You wanna come?”

“Sure.” Steve grinned. “You know I love opening nights.” He stood, going back into the kitchen for bread and butter, and returned. “Natasha called today.”

“Oh?” Bucky raised an eyebrow. Calls from Natasha - Steve's very Russian, very crazy art agent - were usually good news. “What'd she have to say?”

“She got me into a show. In a week.” Steve fairly vibrated with excitement. “At _Stark Tower_.”

Bucky blinked, then stared. “Stark Tower? Are you fuckin' kidding me?”

“Nope!” Steve's grin was nearly wide enough to split his face. “Pepper Potts, Stark's new CEO, is having some kind of gala thing, and she decided she wanted to feature 'undiscovered gems of the art world' - that's what Natasha said, not me. And probably not Miss Potts, either.” He waved a hand. “Anyway, she's got me a spot for a painting _and_ a sculpture.”

“Which would explain why you have clay under your fingernails,” Bucky teased.

Steve grinned some more. “Nah, I'm not putting a new piece in; I think I'm gonna use the one you sat for.”

“Oh my God,” Bucky groaned. “Are you kidding me with this?”

“No! Come on, it's really good, you know it is.”

“I know, but... Steve, I'm naked in it.”

“Well, yeah, you're supposed to be,” Steve replied. “That's the whole point.”

Bucky groaned again, covering his eyes. “And you're going to want me to go, aren't you?”

“No, you don't have to,” Steve replied. He took a bite of chicken, and Bucky watched between his fingers as his shoulders slumped, his eyes fell to the tabletop, and he sighed softly, chewing his food slowly enough that it may as well have been made of cardboard. 

Bucky removed his hand. “Con artist.”

Steve's eyes rolled up to meet Bucky's, the wicked glint in them detracting only slightly from his generalized air of dejectedness. “Bucky,” he said softly, echoes of gloom in his voice, “you know I would never ask you to do something you were uncomfortable with.”

“You're a lying little shit, you know that?” Bucky reached over, tucking two fingers under Steve's chin, and raised his face up. Then he leaned in and kissed Steve, warm and slow. “I'll go to your damn show. I'll even let you tell people I sat for the sculpture. But I swear to God, Steve, if I get propositioned by your weird ass friends again...”

“That was _one time_ ,” Steve protested. “And all you had to do was say no politely!”

Bucky, grumbling for the show of it, went back to his dinner.

***

Steve stood in front of the bathroom mirror that night, glass of water beside the sink, handful of pills in his hand. He sighed, popping the first two in his mouth and washing them down, then repeating the process with the last three. God, he hated being sickly. He took a deep breath, puffing out his chest as he sometimes did, trying to imagine how he might look if he were a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier. He shook his head, unable to wrap his mind around the concept.

If he was honest with himself, his stature didn't bother him as much these days as it used to. Now that skinny and nerdy was in - especially in Brooklyn, where the hipster reigned supreme - it was easier to find interesting clothes and he was less likely to be mistaken for Bucky's twelve-year-old brother. Bucky himself had never seemed to have a problem with Steve's stature; as he became more confident in his own identity as a bisexual man, he'd even started teasingly referring to Steve as his “favorite twink”. What really bothered Steve was his tendency toward illness.

Since childhood, it had been one thing after another. Classified medically fragile at age five, he'd been in and out of the hospital with this or that condition; he actually had to be home-schooled in the fourth grade, because he spent more time bedridden than he did ambulatory. Even now, as an adult, he had to be more careful of drafts and germs and so on than any properly-evolved human being ought to be.

Art had always been his escape. When his mother died, leaving him an orphan at fifteen, he had turned to art for solace. When Bucky's parents - who had taken him in, thus saving him a trip through the foster system - had died, he had turned to art. While Bucky was going through his wild phase, hurting everyone around him as he tried to escape from his own rage and pain, Steve made art. When Bucky was gone to Afghanistan, Steve was making art. When Bucky came back from Afghanistan alive but missing an arm, Steve made art.

And now, with any luck, his art would make him.

He stared at himself for another moment or two, taking in his perpetually narrow face, skinny shoulders, and pale chest. Then, with a soft sigh, he pulled his t-shirt on over his head, grabbed a towel, and shuffled out of the bathroom.

Bucky, dressed only in a pair of blue boxer-briefs, was already lying in bed, his prosthetic arm tossed carelessly on the desk like the remnants of a bright silver skeleton. Steve tossed the towel to Bucky, who laid it on the mattress to his right. Then he clambered onto the bed at its foot, getting up on all fours and crawling up Bucky's body, a grin on his face. Bucky grinned back. “You look like you got somethin' dirty on your mind,” he commented idly, reaching up to grab the hem of Steve's t-shirt and pull it off.

“I do,” Steve replied easily, leaning down to lick a slow path up the center of Bucky's chest. “You.”

Bucky rumbled softly, a sound that never failed to make Steve shiver, and reached down to cup Steve's face, drawing him up for a long, slow, decadent kiss. When he released Steve's mouth, he murmured against his lips, “You wanna be on top or on the bottom?”

Steve sucked in a deep breath. “Bottom,” he said softly. “You know I love it when...”

“Yeah, I know.” Bucky kissed him again, his tongue flicking against Steve's, his teeth nipping gently against Steve's lip. “I know.” He waited for Steve to slide off him and stand, watched the smaller man shuck his pajama pants, and grinned at the sight before him. Steve might be slight everywhere that most people could see; his cock was nothing of the sort. Bucky swung his legs off the side of the bed and sat there for a second, admiring his lover. “Damn,” he finally whispered. “Come here, baby.”

Steve went, and Bucky slid off the side of the bed and onto his knees, reaching up to take Steve's cock in his hand. He leaned down, licking a slow stripe up the underside, and then swallowed the head and most of the shaft. Steve bucked and swore, his hands coming to rest on Bucky's head, fingers carding through Bucky's thick hair. “Jesus, Buck...” he managed.

Bucky laughed softly, taking another minute to work Steve over with his mouth before releasing him. He let Steve help him up out of the floor before guiding him to bend over the side of the bed, then checked the bedside table. He made sure that Steve's inhaler was there, took a second to check the counter on the base of the plastic mouthpiece, just to make sure it wasn't a spare empty that was still lying around, and then he fished into the drawer, pulling out a condom and the pump bottle of Aquaglide. He rolled the condom on first, then pumped some of the lube out onto his fingers.

Steve was watching him over his shoulder, eyes hazy and heavy-lidded with arousal, and a deep pink flush stole across his body as Bucky turned to him. There was a time when Bucky could have held Steve down with one hand while applying the lube with the other; these days, Steve held himself down, and if Bucky caught himself sometimes trying to reach with the stump of his left arm, neither of them mentioned it.

Steve raised one knee, setting it on the edge of the bed, and arched his back, opening himself for Bucky as best he could. Bucky ran two fingers across Steve's entrance, drawing a shiver from the smaller man, and then slid one finger inside. Steve shuddered hard, whimpering, and Bucky only gave him a moment to brace himself before nudging a second finger in alongside the first.

The whine Steve let out at the stretch was delicious, running down Bucky's spine and making him quiver and grin, and he thrust his fingers in gently, reveling in the warm, slick softness inside of Steve, searching with two fingers for the spot that would make Steve writhe and whimper and cry out in want. When he found it, Steve did all of those things, his body jerking under Bucky's, and the dark-haired man laughed softly. “God, you always want it so bad.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed, panting softly. “Always, Buck, always want you.”

Bucky's heart clenched. He leaned to the left, bracing himself with one knee on the mattress, and murmured, “Steve. Lean up.”

Steve turned, blinking up at him for a moment before realizing what Bucky wanted; he pushed himself up on his hands and twisted, kissing Bucky hard, biting down on Bucky's lower lip and groaning into his mouth when Bucky's fingers brushed across his prostate again. “Jesus, Buck,” Steve choked out. “Please, Jesus.”

Bucky chuckled. “Roll over.”

Their sex life had gotten a lot more vocal since Bucky's return from Afghanistan; where he had been accustomed to guiding or simply manhandling Steve into the desired position, he couldn't do so any longer. The first time Bucky tried to use his prosthetic hand during sex had ended with Steve badly bruised, and since that time, he had refused to wear it in bed. Now he directed, and Steve obeyed with a grin.

Bucky slid his fingers out of Steve, to the musical accompaniment of Steve's groan of protest, and pumped his hand full of lube as Steve flopped onto his back. He slicked himself, then pushed two fingers back into Steve, who arched beautifully under him, narrow rib cage heaving. “Okay there?” Bucky asked.

Steve nodded. “Good, good,” he managed. “Please, Bucky, please...”

“Just a second.” Bucky carefully introduced a third finger, stretching Steve wide, and the smaller man whined, writhing helplessly, wordless pleas escaping from his mouth along with desperate pants and mewls of pleasure. When Bucky was sure that Steve was ready, he pulled his fingers out and pushed his cock in, sinking slowly in until he was buried firmly inside of Steve.

Steve let out a deep groan that his tiny form should not have been able to make, and Bucky chuckled, grabbing the towel and pulling it closer so he could brace his hand without fouling the bedspread. He leaned down and pressed a hot kiss to Steve's open mouth, his tongue teasing at Steve's lips before making its way across his jaw to that sensitive spot on the side of his neck. Steve shivered underneath him, his fingers clawing at Bucky's back. “Buck,” he panted. “Buck,  _please_ , I  _need_ you.”

“I got you, baby,” Bucky murmured against Steve's skin. He adjusted his angle until he was braced properly - it would only take one time of falling on Steve to break some of those birdlike ribs - and slowly withdrew until only the fat head of his cock remained inside. “Brace yourself,” Bucky said, and Steve lifted his arms over his head, gripping the mattress.

“Do it,” Steve whispered. “Give it to me.” And he leaned up and bit Bucky's collarbone sharply.

Bucky groaned, his body taking over from his mind, and he shoved himself back in, setting up a rough but not brutal pace of thrusts that had Steve writhing and moaning and whimpering underneath him. God, it was frustrating; he wanted so badly to reach down and grab Steve's cock, but all he managed to do - once again - was wave the damn stump. He growled in frustration, but fortunately Steve had his eyes closed and just thought Bucky was being sexy.

Bucky had to grin at that, and he leaned down again. “Touch yourself,” he murmured. “Touch yourself for me.”

Whimpering, Steve reached down with one hand and fisted his cock, and Bucky watched avidly as he stroked himself, slicking himself with his own precome, twisting his wrist, dragging the foreskin up and back and whining, pleading, begging for Bucky to fuck him harder, fuck him deeper, make him come.

And then he did come, spurts of white splattering both himself and Bucky, and Bucky thrust once, twice, again, and then his body bowed over Steve's. Groaning, his hips jerking, he buried his forehead in the crook of Steve's neck and filled the condom, Steve's arms wrapped around him, Steve's fingers sliding into his hair.

Steve sighed softly into Bucky's ear. “God, you always feel so good.”

Bucky pressed a gentle, open-mouthed kiss to the side of Steve's neck. “Love you,” he murmured.

“Love you, too,” Steve murmured back.

***

The best part about having professions like artist and stagehand was the way they could sleep indulgently late almost anytime they liked. When Steve rolled out of bed the next morning a little after eleven, Bucky was still asleep, sprawled out across the double bed they shared, his skin gleaming golden in the morning sunlight. With a sleepy smile, Steve found his pajama pants and pulled them on, shuffling out to the kitchen and putting on the coffee pot. He leaned against the counter as it percolated, thinking about breakfast, and finally decided not to bother; there was a tiny diner around the corner, a determined hold-out from the 1940s, where they could get breakfast all day.

Bucky shuffled in just as Steve pulled two mugs out of the cabinet, shrugging into his prosthetic as he came. Steve paused to help Bucky adjust the straps that went around his shoulder, then pulled the vanilla creamer out of the refrigerator and poured them both a cup of coffee - Bucky's black, Steve's topped off with the vanilla because he loved the sweetness. They both leaned against the counter then, and Steve snuggled into Bucky's side. Bucky draped his good arm over Steve's shoulder, carefully maneuvering the coffee cup with his prosthetic.

Steve sighed, content. “This is good,” he said after a minute. “I like this.”

Bucky chuckled softly. “Me, too.” Then he yawned. “But don't get any ideas. I see that lazy-day-on-the-couch gleam in your eye. I have to go in to the theater later.”

Steve pouted, but not very hard. He knew how much Bucky loved working at the theater, putting the engineering knowledge he'd gotten in the military to a use that the military would never have expected and probably wouldn't approve of. He kissed Bucky's pectoral. “When later?”

“About one. Need to double check the rigging and make sure it's all working. And Clint said something about redoing some of the props.”

“He's such a perfectionist.”

“Yeah, but it really makes a difference in the work,” Bucky said. “Besides, you're a perfectionist, too.”

“True,” Steve replied. “I'm not judging.” He drained his coffee cup. “Wanna go get pancakes before you have to go in?”

***

After breakfast, Steve and Bucky shared a kiss on the street in front of the diner and went their separate ways; Bucky to catch the train into Manhattan at Seventh Avenue, and Steve back to the apartment. As he arrived, Mrs. Petrakis, the elderly first floor tenant who'd been living there since the mid-sixties, was coming out of the front door. “Yoo-hoo, Steven!” she called out, and he grinned.

“Hey, Mrs. Petrakis,” he greeted her. “Heading out?”

“Yes, I have to go to the bodega.” She sighed, rolling her eyes a little. “My son is bringing his new girlfriend over to dinner tonight and I have to pretend to like her.” 

“Now, Mrs. Petrakis, you know you can't walk that far by yourself,” Steve said, hurrying up the steps to give her his arm on the way down. “Not after you fell last year. Why don't you wait for Emmanuel to get home from school?”

“Because it'll be too late,” Mrs. Petrakis replied. “They're holding back some of those roasted chickens for me, but if I wait, they're apt to sell them before I get there.”

Steve cracked up laughing. “You're going to put them on a platter and claim you made them yourself, aren't you?” he guessed. “You're a sneak and a vixen, Mrs. Petrakis.”

“I was something of a terror, in my younger years,” she admitted, her eyes twinkling. “Well, must be going.”

“Not by yourself, you're not,” Steve replied. “I'll come with you. We're low on milk anyway.” He darted down the stairs, grabbed the collapsible shopping cart from its place in the coat closet, and hurried back up again.

He ended up getting a chicken as well; they were lemon-pepper, and they smelled good enough that Steve felt like Bucky would forgive him for serving chicken two days in a row. He also got milk and a bottle of juice, and was glad he'd brought the cart because Mrs. Petrakis ended up getting a case of soda as well.

When they got back to the building, Steve was startled to find Natasha sitting on the front stoop, wearing a blue beret and smoking a cigarette and looking as though she sat on his front stoop every day of the week. She watched the grocery cart while he carried Mrs. Petrakis's soda inside for her, then followed him downstairs and into the garden apartment. “I have been waiting for you,” she told him, giving him a significant look.

“You should have called,” Steve replied easily. “I'd have told you I wasn't home.”

“Steven,” Natasha said, her accent slipping out just a little bit. “Did you understand when I said to you _one week_?”

“Sure,” he said. “Come on back; I'll show you the pieces I've picked out.”

She followed him through the little apartment and back into his work room. He flipped the light on and headed for the back of the room, where a set of industrial shelves held a number of completed sculptures. Natasha, predictably, made a beeline for the work table under the windows, trying to examine the piece that was currently in progress. It was covered in heavy duty plastic, to keep the clay from drying out before he was done with it. “Hands off,” he warned her just as she reached for the edge of the plastic.

She drew her hand back and glared at him. He just smiled, unperturbed, reaching out and pulling a piece off the shelf. “Here,” he said. “This one.” He brought it over to the table and set it down, pushing it in her direction.

She examined it carefully, looking it over with the critical eye of a woman who knows her art. It was a nude man - Bucky, though of course most people wouldn't know that - reclining on his side, upper body propped up on his elbow, hips canted just so, half-erect and wearing that come-hither smirk that never failed to make Steve shiver. After a long moment of examination, Natasha finally snapped, “Adequate,” which for her was fulsome praise indeed. She continued, “What painting?”

“Oh,” Steve said. He darted back to the other side of the room, flipping through a stack of unframed canvases that leaned against the wall. “How about one of these?” He pulled out two large canvases. They were very similar in subject, both being views of the street outside as seen from the sidewalk. One of them, a watercolor, was a sort of abstract impressionist version, heavy on shades of blue. The other was an oil painting in the realist style. 

Natasha pointed at the realist version. “That one is far superior to the other,” she said. She stepped closer to it, examining it in detail. “Very well done, I must say,” she said. “Nearly photorealistic. Your technique continues to improve.”

Steve smiled. “Thank you,” he said.

“You should focus more on the realist style,” Natasha said. “It suits you better than the other.”

“Oh, I know,” Steve replied. “But sometimes I think I'd like to be the next Van Gogh.”

“Bah,” Natasha waved a hand. “There will never be another Van Gogh. Be the next Steven Rogers, instead.” 

He gave her a playful salute. “Yes, ma'am.”

“Good. Now help me wrap this naked Bucky, so we can talk money and then I can go. I'm very busy, you know.”


	2. Chapter 2

Opening nights were some of Steve's favorite experiences. There was something about the energy of a cast on its first night that could never be duplicated by any other experience. It was electric. Everything was chaos: costume people everywhere, props people everywhere, actors changing costumes, actors getting their makeup on. Steve stayed out of the way with the ease of long practice, hugging the walls and taking photo after photo with his tiny digital camera. He was no kind of photographer, but the pictures would be great later for inspiration. He often used photographs he'd taken as visual references for scenes he would later paint; he'd once gotten an entire series of watercolors out of a kids' birthday party at Prospect Park.

That night's experience was full of scenes for him to shoot and think about painting or even sculpting later, from the thrilling excitement on the actors' faces to the intense focus of the director and even Bucky's expression of frustration when his prosthetic malfunctioned and he had to send Clint up into the rigging to fix something he normally would have fixed himself. He even managed to get a few shots of the two celebrity actors who were appearing in the show.

The show itself was an off-Broadway revival of  _Jesus Christ Superstar_ , with a gender-bent cast and modern wardrobe and scenery. It would make for some very interesting paintings - and possibly a sculpture or two; the woman playing Judas Iscariot was a friend of a friend who might be willing to sit for him, once the show's four-week run was complete. She also introduced him to the woman who was playing Jesus, one of the celebrity actors whose popular television show was on summer hiatus. It turned out that the celebrity was interested in art collecting as a hobby, and he found himself promising to bring pictures of his art for her to look at in case she wanted to buy any of it.

Reeling from his encounter with the celebrity, Steve was just about to find a quiet place out in the house to stand and watch the show when someone came in and announced the presence of protestors on the street out front. “Holy shit, you guys,” said Sam Wilson, the costume director. “If they're out there with signs, we're gonna have a packed house.”

“Nothin' like sign-wavers to bring in folks off the street,” Bucky agreed in an undertone to Steve.

Steve waggled his camera at Bucky. “I'm gonna go take some pictures of them.”

Bucky sighed. “Could you try not to get a bottle thrown at you this time? You're prettier when you don't have stitches on your face, and Natasha will kill me if you're not pretty for that art show.”

Steve cocked an eyebrow. “Why would she kill you?”

“Because I'm the one supposed to be looking after your dumb ass.” Bucky cupped Steve's neck and pulled him in for a quick, enthusiastic kiss. “Got your pass?”

Steve pulled on the lanyard that hung inside his shirt, waggled the laminated backstage pass at Bucky, and then stuffed it back in. “I'll be fine, Mom.”

“Smart ass,” Bucky grumbled, leaning in to kiss him again. “Go take your pictures.”

“I'm goin',” Steve replied. “I'll be back.”

He went out the stage door, making sure to push it closed behind him and check that it was latched. Then he made his way up the alley, dodging a couple of cats on the way, and emerged onto the street. It didn't take long to find the protesters; there were only a few of them, but they were right in front of the theater. Steve sidled up to one of the security guards, a friend of Bucky's, and nudged him. “Cops on the way?”

“Oh, yeah,” the guard said. “Should be here in just a few.”

Steve nodded, checked for traffic, and darted across the street to find a better vantage point. There was definitely something to what Bucky had said; more than once, pairs and groups of people who looked like they were idly passing by stopped, took in the protesters, took in the theatre marquee, discussed amongst themselves, and bought tickets. Steve grinned at the sight. He took photo after photo, considering the possibility of doing some kind of mixed media  _thing_ with them as he did so, and documented the arrival of the police and the subsequent dispersement of the protesters with no small amount of glee. 

Once they were gone, he spent a few more minutes taking pictures of the crowd outside and some of the traffic, and even a few of Stark Tower, looming over the Theatre District from just a few blocks away. He'd like to call the shape of the building  _interesting_ or  _futuristic_ , but the plain fact was that it was ugly, and whoever had designed it ought to be smacked with a first year architecture textbook. He shook his head, taking a few more pictures of random things, and then darted back across the street and into the theatre. His backstage pass got him into the nearly-full auditorium just as the opening notes of “Heaven On Their Minds” began to play, and he settled in to watch the show. The cast was clearly having an extremely good time, and brought the house down several times, earning a standing ovation from the crowd at the end of the night. 

Once the curtain dropped, Steve headed backstage. He found a spot to wait not far from Bucky's post and made sure to congratulate all the performers who came past him, letting them all know how well they'd done and how much he'd enjoyed the performance. The cast eventually cleared out, heading outside to sign playbills, and the crew finished up quickly, leaving out the front. Clint caught up with Bucky and Steve as they were leaving, slinging a companionable arm around Steve's shoulders. “I feel pancakes coming on,” he said. “You guys wanna come?”

Steve and Bucky exchanged glances, then shrugged. “Sure,” Bucky said. “As soon as I break your arm for tryin' to steal my boy.”

“You do know Natasha would cut my throat in my sleep if I even thought about it, right?” Clint said, but he made a show of taking his arm back anyway, grinning as he stuck his hands in his pockets. 

Bucky ostentatiously slung his own arm around Steve, tucking him up against his side protectively. Steve sighed. “I'm starting to feel like someone's harem girl,” he protested.

“It's a little kinky, but we can go there if you want,” Bucky replied. “I saw some fabric in the costume room that'd suit your coloring.”

Steve gave him a gentle punch to the ribs. “Jerk.”

Bucky ruffled Steve's hair. “Punk.”

“Jeez, enough with the lovey-dovey, already.” Sam's voice floated up the block to them, and they paused as he jogged up to join them. “You guys going for food?”

“Yeah, Clint said he's buying everybody pancakes,” Bucky replied.

“Hey!” Clint protested. “I did not!”

“Well, hell, if Clint's buying, I'm in,” Sam said cheerfully. He turned slightly toward a figure just across the street, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Hey, Thor!” he shouted at the lead set designer, a Norwegian mountain of a man with a cheerful smile and a voracious appetite. “Pancakes! Barton's buying!”

“Gladly will I join you!” Thor called back, waiting for a set of cars to pass before starting across the street.

Clint glared at Bucky. “You're an asshole.”

Bucky grinned.

***

Steve spent the rest of the week working on his newest sculpture: a tiny baby dragon in the process of hatching out of its shell, held carefully in two large human hands. The hands had started out as his own, but had somehow become Bucky's, and Steve wondered how Bucky would react to that. He sometimes got very funny about Steve painting or sculpting his hands and arms; not that Steve could really blame him. He'd probably feel weird about it, too, in Bucky's place.

Still, by the time he realized what he'd done, changing the hands would mean scrapping the whole piece and starting over, and Steve loved Bucky but he wasn't sure he loved him quite that much. (It was really turning out much better than he'd expected it to.) He finished the sculpting on the morning of the show, then set it aside to fire and paint later. One very long, very hot shower left him mostly clay-free, though there was still some embedded in the creases of his nails; he  _could_ sit with the nail brush and some hot water or he could take a nap and not worry about it, because there was always a certain brand of rich idiot who thought that a sculptor with clay under his nails was somehow more  _authentic_ . 

He snorted softly, pulled on a pair of boxer briefs, and flopped down onto the mattress. He was asleep in minutes.

The sensation of Bucky's mouth on his lower back, just to the left of his spine, brought him out of a dream about giant jellyfish, and he was hard as a rock in moments. “Jesus, Bucky,” he managed, his hips rutting against the mattress.

Bucky laughed against his skin, making Steve shiver, and made his way further down, his hand tugging at the waistband of Steve's underwear as he went. His mouth caressed the curve of Steve's ass as he bared it, and Steve lifted his hips helpfully, dropping his own hand down to maneuver the elastic over his cock. “What - what time is it?” he managed, as Bucky's fingers slipped between his cheeks to tease at his hole.

“Just after four,” Bucky replied. “Roll over.”

Steve complied, letting Bucky pull his briefs the rest of the way off, and shifted to sit at the edge of the mattress when Bucky went to his knees there. “Buck,” he managed, but Bucky cut him off by the simple expedient of taking Steve's cock into his mouth as deeply as he could without gagging. Steve groaned, falling backward, his body arching, and Bucky chuckled, his good hand sliding up Steve's thigh to cup his sac.

It didn't take long for Bucky to make Steve come; just a few minutes of the kind of deep sucking that he liked the best, accompanied by gentle fondling of his balls and followed up with two knuckles digging into his perineum, and he was arching, swearing, writhing, and filling Bucky's mouth. Bucky, grinning like the Cheshire cat, swallowed greedily and then licked Steve clean, reveling in the soft jerks and moans that were his reward for such attention. Then he pushed himself to his feet, giving Steve a firm pat on the hip. “Might want to get dressed as soon as you get your breath back,” he said. “I thought we might take the bike over to Manhattan tonight.”

“If you've decided to kill me, there are faster ways,” Steve groaned. 

Bucky laughed as he ducked into the bathroom. “If I wanted to kill you, I sure as hell wouldn't waste time suckin' your cock first.”

Steve had no comeback for that - for which he blamed his current state of brain-melt - and instead grumbled under his breath, even as he pulled his gallery suit out of the closet. He really hated that suit; he wore it specifically to annoy Natasha. The first time she put him in a show, she backed him into a corner and gave him a very scary lecture about how she required her artists to look like professionals and not show up “looking like you've just crawled out of a dumpster after a three-day cocaine-and-Red-Bull bender, for the love of all that is holy, wear a fucking suit.”

So he did. He found a shop in Williamsburg that catered to the most extravagant of the hipsters and obtained a dark blue plaid three-piece suit with the skinniest pants he'd ever squeezed himself into in his life. The shirt was a plain white dress shirt, but the vest was the same blue plaid as the rest of the suit, and he had spent a week learning to tie a bow tie specifically for the bright red one he'd found in a secondhand store. Bucky said he needed a hat to go with it, but Steve refused to wear a fedora on ideological grounds (“I don't believe in being a douchebag, Bucky,”) so Bucky found him a newsboy cap in the same dark blue as the suit plaid.

When he'd arrived at that first show wearing his new suit, Natasha had sworn at him for several minutes in Russian. He simply stared at her with what Bucky liked to call his Bambi eyes, waited until she was done, and said, “You said to wear a suit.”

Natasha had turned her burning eyes to Bucky, who stood next to Steve in a perfectly ordinary, well-tailored grey suit. “You couldn't do something about this?”

Bucky had shrugged. “You ever try to stop the tide with your bare hands?” She had sworn at both of them again, then stalked off. Steve had made it a point to wear that suit to every show since. He would stop when she quit wincing at it.

He and Bucky met up at the front door, both of them fully dressed and pulling on their jackets. Bucky snorted softly at the sight of Steve in his gallery suit, as he always did. “One of these days,” he said, “that suit's gonna pick a fight you can't win.”

Steve smirked. “So, the same as every day, just with more plaid?”

Bucky cackled, pulling the two motorcycle helmets out of the hall closet. “Takin' you places is like walkin' a chihuahua with anger management issues, you know that?”

Steve, who was not hearing this comparison for the first time, grinned. “At least I've gotten better about actually picking physical fights.”

“True.” Bucky pulled the door open and ushered Steve out, locking it behind him and then slinging an arm around Steve's shoulders. They headed up the block toward the alley where Bucky kept his motorcycle parked. Technically, it was Mr. Coulson's back yard, but because his brownstone was the one on the end of the row, his back yard let into the alley. Mr. Coulson - Phil, Steve reminded himself, but it was hard to get past old habits, and he'd taught Steve and Bucky both American History in high school - also owned a motorcycle, and was more than happy to let Bucky use his back yard as a parking space in exchange for the occasional bit of home maintenance. 

Steve waited in the alley while Bucky twisted the dial on the combination lock and retrieved the bike, pushing it out through the gate. Then Steve closed and locked the gate while Bucky pushed the bike out to the street, trying to be considerate because he knew that Mr. Coulson's second-floor tenants had a small child who might be asleep. Once at the street, Steve hopped onto the back, tucking his cap into his waistband behind his suspender, and pulled the helmet on. Bucky put on his own, then twisted in his seat to watch as Steve adjusted the chin strap. Once they were both settled, he hit the starter and the bike's engine roared to life. Steve wrapped his arms around Bucky's waist, and they took off, heading for Manhattan.

Traffic was slow getting into the city, but that wasn't a surprise, so the two of them simply took their time and enjoyed the trip. Any opportunity to ride was an opportunity Steve refused to miss; after losing his arm, Bucky had been afraid his bike riding days were over. Then, one of the guys he knew from the VA told him about a place where he could get his Harley modified for a one-handed rider. With all the controls on the right hand, and some industrial-strength Velcro to help him keep his left hand on the handlebar, he was soon riding again as much as he had before.

They cruised easily through Manhattan, following the beacon that was the brightly lit “STARK” at the top of the tower. At the tower's base, Bucky pulled up to the curb and let Steve off. The valet approached, but Bucky shook his head. “The controls are modified,” he explained. “Is there anywhere that I can park it myself?”

The young man gave Bucky directions to the parking garage's entrance, and Bucky nodded. “Thank you,” he said. “Steve, wait here for me?”

“Of course,” Steve replied, slipping the valet a small tip for his trouble. He pulled his helmet off, tucking it into the bike's saddlebag, and Bucky pulled away from the curb, making his way around the building. Steve pulled his phone out and used the front-facing camera to check on and then fix his hair before tugging his cap on. Then he found an out-of-the-way spot and played a round of Robot Unicorn Attack while waiting for Bucky. Bucky returned in about five minutes, automatically taking Steve's hand as they headed toward the door.

Despite the role that his military service had played in helping Bucky get his head back on straight after his parents died, Steve couldn't help but harbor some uncharitable feelings toward that establishment. He tried to repress his bitterness over Bucky's injury, and usually succeeded, but he couldn't help thinking how much nicer it was now that they didn't have to worry about whether or not Bucky was going to catch hell from someone in his unit or his chain of command. Bucky could indulge his gentlemanly impulses - opening doors, resting his hand at the small of Steve's back, and so on - as much as he liked.

Steve had to admit, he liked it too. There was just something about Bucky's deeply protective streak that warmed him down to his core.

They were early enough - an hour or so before the official start of the event - and unremarkable enough that they avoided most of the paparazzi, who were beginning to circle like vultures. Upon entering the building, they were greeted by a young man wearing a sharp suit and carrying a clipboard. Steve gave his name, and the young man, with a smile, directed them into the nearest elevator. To both of their consternation, there were no buttons inside the elevator; it merely  _went_ , floor numbers flashing by on the little LED screen as their ears popped with the change in pressure. 

When the car finally slowed to a stop, the screen read “89” and the doors slid open to reveal a wide, clearly multipurpose space. The left side of the room had been broken up into small sections, partitioned off with half-walls and attractive dividers, and turned into an impromptu art gallery. Steve could see Natasha, a whirlwind in vintage black Chanel, moving among the displays, double checking everything. On the right, tables were set with white tablecloths and fine china in a semicircle around a parquet dancing floor. A string quartet was setting up on the other side of the parquet.

Natasha spied them as they exited the elevator and waved Steve over imperiously. She pointed out his painting and his sculpture. “They've both been sold,” she told him. She pulled a small case out of her clutch and popped it open, flipping through its contents before drawing out a check and handing it to him. “Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts purchased every single piece; they're all going to be auctioned for charity later tonight.”

He unfolded the check and glanced at it, then froze, his eyes bugged out as he stared at the dollar amount. “Natasha, that's... that's over twice what we talked about.”

“I'm well aware,” Natasha replied, her eyes shining. “And I've already deducted my percentage.”

He raised his head, staring at her in shock. “Are you  _serious_ ?”

“Darling,” she said, “You know I never joke about money.” She patted his cheek. “Go! Mingle! Do not embarrass me!” She paused, looking him up and down. “Well, not any more than you have to. One of these days, Steven, I am going to break into your apartment and burn that suit.”

“Well, thanks for letting me know ahead of time whose name to put on the police report when that happens,” Steve replied mildly, folding the check up and tucking it into the inside pocket of his jacket. Natasha vanished in a whirl of Chanel (and a strong whiff of Chanel No. 5, which made Steve grateful for his allergy medication). Steve turned and stared at Bucky, who was looking as shocked as Steve felt. “Did you _see_ ,” he began in a whisper.

Bucky nodded slowly. “Christ, Steve,” he said softly. “That... all that? I knew your stuff was good, I mean, come on, I got eyes, but  _damn_ .”

“I never expected that much,” Steve admitted. “I mean... I can't even... My God, Bucky.”

Bucky shook himself, blinked a couple of times, and then grabbed Steve's hand, pulling him in for a searing kiss. “I am so proud of you,” he whispered against Steve's lips. “And I am so glad that the world is finally about to see all the talent you have.”

Steve blushed, smiling shyly. He tucked his hand into Bucky's, and the two of them moved forward into the impromptu gallery, greeting the other artists and their partners, who were all beginning to move among the works. There were a total of ten artists whose work was displayed in the gallery, and Steve was surprised to find himself presented side-by-side with not just other unknown artists, but some fairly well-known names as well.

Once the guests began to arrive - a virtual  _Who's Who_ of New York's elite and wealthy - Steve tried to stay close to the art, in case anyone wanted to ask him anything about his pieces. He had a pocket full of cards with his contact information and the address of his website, which he handed out as often as he could, making sure to smile brilliantly at everyone and be as friendly and personable as he could. About an hour into this, dinner was served. Steve and Bucky, who had not actually expected to be fed, were surprised to find themselves seated together at a table with a well-known writer, a popular politician, and an A-list Hollywood actor. Bucky, of course, was his usual charming self; Steve spent the entire meal worried that he'd spill something down the front of his shirt. Fortunately, he did not.

After the meal, the silent auction began, and Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts led off the dancing. Once the floor was about half full, Steve allowed Bucky to pull him onto the parquet for a simple waltz. He wasn't a great dancer, but Bucky was forgiving, and when the dance was over, they shared a quick kiss. Then Bucky excused himself to the men's room and Steve went back to mingling.

***

It happened while Bucky was washing his hands at the sink. He'd developed a technique for it; he wet paper towels and squeezed soap onto them, then held them in his prosthetic hand and scrubbed down his flesh hand. Unfortunately, his prosthetic had decided to totally stop working - the fingers would no longer move at all - and so he was having some trouble with it. He was just in the middle of a really good swearing streak when the bathroom door swung open and Tony Stark himself walked in.

Bucky flushed. “Sorry,” he said.

“No, no, please, continue,” Stark replied, grinning as he headed for the urinal. “That was starting to get really inventive, and I'm always a sucker for inventiveness.”

Bucky laughed. “My ma would wash my mouth out,” he admitted. “The Army was a very bad influence on me.” He fought for another minute with the paper towel, finally admitted that he'd done the best he could do for now, and ran the water hot to rinse.

Stark meandered over to wash his own hands and quirked an eyebrow at the sight of Bucky's prosthetic. “Problems there?”

“Yeah, a little bit,” Bucky admitted, holding the hand up so that Stark could see the clawed shape of the metal skeleton. “Damn thing quit workin' on me last week, and I can't get in to the VA to get it looked at for another month.”

There was a moment of silence while Stark washed his hands, his eyes still stuck on the hand. “You know,” he said slowly, “I do a bit of tinkering, from time to time.”

“I'm aware,” Bucky replied, his voice dry. As if anyone wouldn't know just exactly who Tony Stark was and what kind of “tinkering” he did.

“I could look at that for you,” Stark offered casually. “If you want.”

Bucky felt his eyebrows climb toward his hairline. “Seriously?”

Stark's mouth slowly curved into a wicked grin. “That's Hammertech, isn't it?” he said, his voice low as if dealing in deepest secrecy. When Bucky nodded, he continued, “I've been  _dying_ to get my hands on one of those - if you'll pardon the pun. I'm fairly sure they've stolen some of Stark Industries' proprietary tech for the movement. You'd actually be doing me a  _huge_ favor.”

“Well,” Bucky said slowly, feeling his own mouth curl up into a matching grin. “Never let it be said that I turned down the opportunity to do Tony Stark a favor.”

Stark laughed, reaching out and clapping Bucky on the shoulder. “I like you,” he said. “Let's sneak out of here before Pepper finds me. I'll show you my workshop and we'll see if we can't have you two-handed by the end of the night.”

Bucky followed him out of the bathroom eagerly.

***

It had been about nine o'clock, Steve figured, when Bucky went off to the bathroom. Steve mingled some more, danced with two elderly Broadway divas and one teenage actress from a premium cable show, and talked about his art to everyone who asked - which turned out to be rather a lot of people. By ten o'clock, he had handed out almost every card in his pocket and couldn't find Bucky anywhere.

The silent auction ended at eleven. His painting went to the Senator from his district; the sculpture went to the teenage actress he'd danced with. She winked at him across the room, and he blushed. Both of them sold for half again as much as Steve had gotten for them, proceeds to the Maria Stark Foundation, and Steve was proud and gratified that his art could be used for such a worthy cause. And then he was staggered by the thought of how much he might be able to sell other pieces for. And then he was dancing with someone's wife, who thought he was just the most adorable little thing ever and was tipsy enough to tell him so - repeatedly.

With the end of the auction, guests began to slowly filter out of the tower. By eleven-thirty, Steve had shaken several people's hands on the way out, received several promises of phone calls for potential commissions, and fielded one offer of a  _ménage à trois_ with an heiress and her boyfriend. And he still had not seen Bucky.

By twelve, nearly all the guests were gone, and Steve didn't know what to do. He'd called Bucky's cell phone several times, and it rang out to voice mail every time. He asked several of the waiters and cleanup staff if anyone had seen Bucky, but no one had. Steve was nearly frantic. Bucky would never leave without him  _(would he?)_ and that meant that something must have happened to him. But if something had happened to him, surely someone would have seen something or heard something. But if nothing had happened to him, then had Bucky left without him?

By twelve-fifteen, Steve was sitting in a chair near the elevator, watching as the cleanup staff folded up the tables. He had no idea what to do. If he knew where Bucky had parked, he would go and wait by the bike, but he didn't. He'd called Bucky several more times, but they all went unanswered. Steve found himself actually struggling not to cry, a feeling that he did not like in the least. So he sat in the chair by the elevator, his phone clenched in his hand, waiting for Bucky because he flatly did not know what else to do.

That was where Pepper Potts found him when she came through to do a check on the room. He saw her when she entered - his head swung around, his heart hoping that the door was opening to admit Bucky, and his spirits sank a bit more when it didn't. He saw her brow furrow, and she approached him across the room with a palpable concern and a swish of Valentino skirts. “It's Steve, isn't it?” she asked as she approached. “Steve Rogers?”

Steve stood, offering his hand. “Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry... if I'm in the way, I can wait somewhere else.”

“Wait for...?” she asked. He sighed and explained the situation. Ms. Potts's brow furrowed even harder. “You said he disappeared around nine?” Steve nodded, and Ms. Potts tapped her chin. “Your husband doesn't have any kind of interest in engineering or robotics, does he?”

“Well, marginally,” Steve replied. “He does backstage technical work.” He paused, feeling his own brow furrow. “But now that you mention it,” he said, the words coming slowly, “he _does_ have a little engineering problem of his own. He's got a semi-experimental prosthetic arm, and it just recently quit working on him.”

Ms. Potts sighed. “I have a feeling I know exactly where he is,” she said. “And exactly who he's with. Come with me, Steve; let's see if we can't get to the bottom of this.”


	3. Chapter 3

Steve followed Ms. Potts into the buttonless elevator; as the doors closed, she spoke. “JARVIS, is Tony in his workshop?”

“I am under strict orders not to answer any inquiries regarding Mr. Stark's whereabouts this evening,” a smooth English-accented voice replied. 

Steve started slightly, looking around as if someone might come popping out of the wall. Ms. Potts smiled slightly. “Sorry,” she said. “That's JARVIS. He's Tony's voice-address system.”

“Oh,” Steve said. He blinked. “That's... well, if you don't mind me saying so, Ms. Potts, that's pretty cool.”

“Please, call me Pepper,” she replied, smiling. “And it is kind of cool. Sometimes there are good side effects from being involved with a technical genius like Tony. And sometimes there are negative ones. JARVIS,” she continued, lifting her voice just slightly, “is there an individual with a prosthetic arm in Tony's workshop?”

There was a tiny pause before JARVIS spoke again, and Steve was pretty sure he wasn't imagining the amused tone in the system's voice. “There is, Ms. Potts,” it -  _he_ \- replied. 

“And we have solved the mystery of the missing men,” Pepper said, clearly amused by her own alliteration. “JARVIS, Tony's workshop, please.”

“Right away, Ms. Potts.”

Steve rubbed at the back of his neck. “You think Mr. Stark is fixing Bucky's arm?”

“Knowing Tony,” Pepper replied, “I'm fairly certain he's building him an entirely new one. And it's probably got lasers.”

Steve took a deep, steadying breath. Bucky was fine; Bucky was not hurt, Bucky was not missing, and Bucky had not - exactly - left without him. As the elevator descended, he let the panic and the fear slowly melt away. They were replaced, almost instantaneously, by a righteous, boiling fury.

Pepper grinned at the sight of Steve's expression changing. “That's the ticket,” she said. “You want to work up a good mad now, before you get down there. I can almost guarantee you that neither one of them has any idea what time it even is.”

“I'm going to kill him,” Steve ground out.

The elevator stopped on 72 and the doors slid smoothly open onto a long hallway lined with science labs. From the far end of the hall, Steve could hear the pounding beat of an AC/DC song - he was pretty sure it was  _Big Balls._ “Well, that's certainly appropriate,” he quipped.

Pepper laughed. “I like you,” she said.

Steve grinned at her. “Thanks,” he said simply.

They headed down the hallway, the music getting louder as they approached a set of glass doors at the end of the hall. “JARVIS,” Pepper said as they reached the doors, “please kill the music.”

As the doors slid open, the music abruptly cut off. Steve and Pepper stepped through the doors together, and across the room, Bucky and Tony Stark both looked up in surprise. Sure enough, Bucky's malfunctioning arm was lying on top of his jacket and shirt, both of which were tossed onto a work table like so much detritus, and Tony had him standing, shirtless, on some kind of platform, designing something around his left arm and shoulder on a holographic display. On any other day, Steve would have been entranced by the advanced technology and its possible applications. Today was not that day.

He crossed the lab, shoving Bucky's prosthesis out of the way and picking up the jacket. He reached into the inner pocket and pulled out Bucky's phone, switching the ringer back on. He glanced at the screen, noting that it displayed twenty-seven missed calls from his own phone, before tossing both items back down onto the work table. He looked up at Bucky, who was staring at him like a deer caught in headlights.

“You know,” Steve said softly, his voice shaking just a bit, “I spent the elevator ride down here trying to come up with a whole bunch of really scathing comments about what a _fantastic_ evening I had after my husband disappeared on me, and how much _fun_ it was to sit upstairs for hours wondering where he'd gone and why he didn't come back. But I'm really tired, and I don't feel well, and I think I just want to go home. So I'm going to skip all the sarcasm and everything else, and I'm just going to say that I have spent the last three and a half hours wondering where you were, and the last hour and a half trying to decide if I should call the police and report you missing. And now I'm going to go downstairs and catch a cab, and I'm going home, and you can do whatever the fuck you want to do because right now I just do not have the energy to care.”

He turned and headed for the door, pausing just as he started out. “Thank you, Pepper. I really do appreciate this.”

“Steve, wait,” Bucky called out.

“Don't catch a cab,” Pepper said. “I have a driver on standby until two. He'll take you home.”

“That really isn't necessary,” Steve began, only to jerk back when he felt Bucky's hand close around his wrist.

“Stevie, don't go, I'm really sorry,” Bucky began.

Steve jerked his arm back. “I'm sure you are,” he replied, struggling to keep his voice even. “And you can tell me all about it tomorrow, when I'm capable of being rational. Because right now, I'm not.”

“Don't hold back on our account,” Stark said from across the room. Steve glanced up to see him manipulating the hologram, not even looking in his direction. He violently restrained the urge to tell Stark where to get off; the man _had_ just paid him a considerable sum of money for two pieces of artwork, and it was never a good idea to piss off someone who was as rich and well-connected as Tony Stark was. 

Pepper, fortunately, read his face like a book. “Hush, Tony,” she said repressively. “Steve, let me call my driver.”

“Steve,” Bucky said firmly, “let me get the bike and we'll go home.”

Steve closed his eyes for a moment, fighting against his thundering heartbeat, the nausea in his stomach, and the whistle he could hear creeping into his breathing. “You appear to be busy,” he said firmly.

“I'm pretty sure you're more important,” Bucky replied. 

Steve forced himself not to snap back with the obvious reply. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, fighting back the urge. The  _last_ thing he wanted to do was start fighting dirty when he didn't feel well and there were strangers watching them. Instead, he said, “I don't want to interrupt...” he waved an eloquent hand.

“Oh, this is going to take at least another fitting anyway,” Stark said from across the room. “If you need him now, he can come back tomorrow.”

Steve opened his eyes, looking from Bucky to Pepper and then back at Bucky again. “I don't feel well,” he said, very softly, his eyes boring into Bucky's.

“Let's go,” Bucky said. He darted back to grab his prosthesis and pull it on. Steve waited, swallowing against the nausea, as Bucky shrugged his shirt and jacket on and jammed his phone into his pants pocket. 

“Come by tomorrow afternoon,” Stark said. “JARVIS will know to let you in.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Bucky replied hastily, hurrying back to Steve. He paused to give Pepper an apologetic look. “I'm sorry about all this,” he murmured.

Pepper waved a hand. “There's no need to apologize to me,” she said. “I'm very used to this sort of thing. Worry about Steve right now.”

Steve gave her a wan smile. “Thank you for everything, Pepper,” he said softly.

Pepper smiled back. “You should come with Bucky tomorrow,” she said. “We can talk art and the joy of being engineering widows.”

Steve rewarded her with a soft laugh. “I might just do that. Thank you.” Then, without waiting for Bucky, he turned and headed for the elevator.

***

Bucky tried once more to apologize in the elevator, but Steve cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Really not now,” he said, keeping his voice low and soft. “My head is pounding and I just really can't take it.”

Bucky swallowed hard and shut up, shoving his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching out. He knew from experience that the last thing Steve would want right now was a hug from him; if Bucky tried to give him one, he was apt to find himself with an armful of angry badger. As much as it hurt to do so, he stood silently as Steve dug his inhaler out of his pocket and used it once in the elevator and once again on the way out to the parking garage. He said nothing as Steve pulled on his helmet, adjusting the chin strap, but rather than draping himself against Bucky's back, he held himself apart, gripping the curved back of the seat instead of wrapping his arms around Bucky's waist as he usually did.

That ride back to Brooklyn was the longest Bucky thought he'd ever experienced.

It got worse when he killed the bike's engine in front of Mr. Coulson's place and Steve climbed off the back, shunning Bucky's helpful hand, and walked away, leaving Bucky to put the bike away alone. By the time Bucky got into the apartment, Steve was in the bathroom with the door locked and the shower running. With a sigh, Bucky went into the bedroom, hoping Steve would talk to him when he came out. He took off his suit, draping the jacket and pants over the desk chair, and pulled on a pair of sweatpants, then sat down on the side of the bed to wait.

The shower cut off, and the curtain rattled back; Steve clattered around for a minute, brushing his teeth and taking his medicine. The bathroom door opened, and the light switched off. Bucky waited, and waited, but Steve didn't come into the bedroom. So Bucky got up and went looking for him.

He found Steve curled into a ball on the couch, wrapped up in a quilt his grandma had made. He sighed. “Steve,” he said softly. He moved closer to the couch, reaching out to touch Steve's shoulder. “Stevie, come on. Come to bed.”

Steve didn't speak; instead, he curled up even tighter. That was when Bucky realized that those thin shoulders were shaking, and he felt like the most massive asshole on the planet. “Aw, Stevie, come on, don't cry.” He perched himself on the edge of the sofa, rubbing Steve's back. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you.”

“Well, you _did_!” Steve spat. “I was fucking terrified up there, Bucky! You didn't even tell me where you were going; you were just _gone_. And there I was, sitting in that chair by the door, waiting and _waiting_ for somebody who was supposed to be there but never showed up, and the whole time, I was sitting there wondering if I should call the police, because the last time that happened _she was dead!_ ”

Bucky felt his heart sink all the way down into his feet. Of course. God, how could he have been so stupid? No wonder Steve was so angry. He remembered the day like it was yesterday; the two of them sitting on that bench outside the principal's office, Steve with a split lip and Bucky with a black eye and a set of badly bruised knuckles, waiting for their parents to arrive because they were both suspended, even though Steve had only been defending himself and Bucky defending Steve. And Bucky's mom had come, of course, but the school couldn't get in touch with Steve's mom.

And they waited and waited, but she didn't come, so Bucky's mom, who was fortunately on the list, finally signed Steve out and took them both home. Neither of them was really in trouble - Bucky's mom knew the score - but they were worried about Steve's mom.

And when they got to Steve's apartment, the police were there, and it had turned out that the reason why the school couldn't get in touch with Steve's mom was because she had been hit by a car on the way to the bodega. By the time Steve and Bucky had gotten into that fight, she'd already been dead for half an hour.

All that time spent sitting there waiting for someone who would never come, never having the chance to say goodbye. No wonder Steve was wrecked. To hell with the angry badger, Bucky thought. He reached out and got hold of Steve by the opposite shoulder, pulling him up and into Bucky's embrace. “I'm sorry,” he whispered into Steve's hair. “God, I'm so sorry.”

And Steve, finally, clung to Bucky like a child and cried. “I can't lose you,” he managed between hitching breaths. “Bucky, I can't... you're everything, I can't lose you.”

“You ain't gonna,” Bucky promised, holding him close. “I swear, Steve, no matter what happens. I swear.”

***

Once Steve finished grieving - for the moment anyway - Bucky gathered him up, quilt and all, and carried him bridal-style back to the bedroom. He knew Steve hated being carried like that, but Steve also hated letting anyone see him looking weak, and he would see his breakdown as a huge sign of weakness, whether Bucky did or not.

Bucky dropped his prosthetic on the desk and lay down beside Steve in the bed, pulling him close and holding him tight, wrapping himself around the smaller man as best he could. Once Steve's breath stopped shuddering, he raised his right hand and ran his thumb under Steve's eye, wiping away the remnants of Steve's tears. “Better?”

Steve shrugged. “Little bit, I guess,” he admitted.

“I'm sorry,” Bucky said again, resting a finger against Steve's lips when he would have spoken. “No. Let me talk.” He waited for Steve to nod, and then he continued. “I'm sorry I disappeared on you; I shouldn't oughta have done that. I shoulda at least told you I was leavin'. Truth is, I got so frustrated over not even bein' able to wash my damn hands and when Stark said he thought he could fix it, well, everything else just went right outta my head. That don't excuse me vanishin' on you like that, but that's what happened.”'

He took a deep breath, running his hand through Steve's hair. “And I'm sorry I scared you. That's the last thing I ever woulda wanted to do. Especially not like that. I know how wrecked you get about your Ma; hell, look how I did when I lost my folks. I oughta know better, and that's the plain truth. So I'm sorry for that, too. And you got a right to be mad, and I won't blame you if you are.”

Steve closed his eyes, leaning forward to rest his forehead against Bucky's chest. “I'm not mad. Not any more. A little irritated, maybe, but that's nothing new, right?” They both chuckled. Steve raised a hand to cup Bucky's cheek, looking up at him. “You scared me. You scared me bad. And when I realized you were fine, it just... it just all settled into mad all of a sudden.” He shook his head slightly. “If Stark can fix your arm, I want you to get it fixed. Whatever it takes.” He stretched up, pressing his lips gently against Bucky's. “I love you, and I want you to be happy.”

“I love you, too,” Bucky murmured against Steve's skin. “God, I dunno what I'd do without you.”

“Starve,” Steve said, giving Bucky a watery grin. “Wander around in filthy hobo clothes because I'm the only one who does any laundry around here. Never get your hair cut or shave, and prob - YIPES!” Steve's litany was interrupted when Bucky dug his fingers into the ticklish spot on the side of Steve's ribs. “Uncle, uncle!”

Grinning back, Bucky leaned down to press a long, warm kiss to Steve's mouth. “You're absolutely right,” he admitted. “I'd be lost without you.”

Steve kissed him back. “Damn right, I'm right,” he said, snuggling down into Bucky's embrace and closing his eyes. “Good thing you've got me, huh?”

***

Bucky awoke the next morning to the gentle touch of fingers running up and down his torso. He smiled softly before ever opening his eyes. “Morning, Stevie,” he mumbled.

Steve, who was straddling Bucky's thighs, bent over and pressed a slow, wet kiss to Bucky's mouth. “Morning,” he whispered against Bucky's cheek. “I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Bucky replied, blinking slowly. His eyebrows rose toward his hairline as he focused on Steve's naked form. “Well,” he said, aping an English accent. “What's all this, then?”

“I feel like I owe you an apology,” Steve replied, his fingers finding Bucky's nipples and teasing them to hard, brown peaks. “I overreacted last night and probably embarrassed both of us in front of the Starks. So I wanted to try and make it up to you before I have to go apologize to both of them.”

“Aw, Stevie, you don't have to - ”

“Oh, are you saying you don't want this?” Steve interrupted, his voice mild, and his hand trailed down to Bucky's groin, slipping through the slit of his boxers and squeezing the erection that hid behind the cotton fabric.

“Not at all,” Bucky replied, his voice a little strangled. “Just sayin' you ain't gotta apologize to them. That's on me.”

“I'm pretty sure what's yours is mine and mine is yours, or something like that, right?” Steve replied, still mild, his wrist twisting as he slowly stroked Bucky's cock with his fist. 

“Steve,” Bucky panted, “right now, you can have whatever the fuck you want.”

Steve laughed then, freeing Bucky's cock through the gap in the fabric. “And what if this is what I want?”

“That's been all yours for a long time, baby,” Bucky promised. “And you know it.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “Yeah, I do.” He leaned down then, bending himself nearly in half, and lavished a long, slow kiss to the weeping head of Bucky's cock. “And I want it inside me,” he murmured once he released it.

“Shit, Stevie, all you had to do was say so,” Bucky said. He reached for the night table. 

Steve slapped his hand away. “Uh-uh,” he said. “Right now, I'm driving.”

“Well, by all means,” Bucky replied, tucking his hand up under his head. “Whatever you want.”

Steve grinned broadly, snapping the elastic of Bucky's boxers against his stomach. “Hips up.”

Bucky complied, and Steve worked his boxers off, then dove down and took Bucky's cock into his mouth again, groaning softly around the hard flesh, working him expertly with lips, teeth, and tongue. Bucky squeezed his eyes shut, his fist clenching, and mentally recited the starting lineup of the 2007 Mets. And the 2008 Mets. And the 2009 Mets. And rehearsed his best rant against the designated hitter rule. And - “ _Jesus_ , Stevie!”

Steve backed off, laughing and licking his lips. “I was wondering how long it would take you to beg for mercy.”

Bucky sucked in great gulps of air, trying to get his pulse to slow down. “Christ,” he managed, and Steve stretched up to kiss him, hard and deep. He buried his hand in Steve's hair, holding him in place, plundering his mouth even as Steve plundered right back. They finally separated, panting on each other's faces, and Steve grinned at him. Bucky grinned right back.

Steve sat back, reaching into the drawer for a condom and the lube. He rolled the condom onto Bucky without teasing - a mercy for which Bucky was eternally grateful - and pumped lube into his hand, reaching down to slick Bucky's cock. Then he rose up onto his knees.

Bucky reached out with his hand. “Steve, you need to let me - ”

Steve stopped him with a dry finger on his lips, taking Bucky's hand in his and drawing it between his legs. Bucky choked softly when his fingers encountered the silicone grip of a plug. “Jesus,” he managed.

“Nope,” Steve replied, smirking. “Just me.” His eyes fluttered shut as Bucky gripped the plug and shifted it inside of Steve, and a soft moan escaped him as Bucky slowly began to draw it out. “Oh. Oh, _fuck_ , Bucky, yeah.”

Bucky chuckled as Steve flushed pink with desire, and pulled the plug the rest of the way out, tossing it onto the floor to be dealt with later. His hand came to rest on Steve's hip, and Steve's hand reached back to grip Bucky's cock, guiding it into his body as he sank down to rest on Bucky's hips. A high-pitched whine escaped him as he took Bucky's cock into himself, and Bucky's fingers tightened on his hip as the pleasure overtook them both.

They both held very still for a long moment. Bucky was panting and struggling not to squirm; Steve's head was tipped backward, his throat working around a silent scream of pleasure. Bucky's hand left Steve's hip, traveling up his torso, and then working its way back down again, stroking slowly from his shoulder blade to his hip and back up again, pausing near the top to tweak the flat pink nipples and then near the bottom to stroke Steve's thick cock. Steve's hips jerked, his muscles clenching, and Bucky thrust up into him in response, pushing himself deeper into Steve's welcoming body.

They worked together, finding a rhythm that worked for them: stroke, roll, clench, thrust, sweating and cursing and pressing together, ever and ever onward. Steve's hands clenched at the air in front of him, desperately seeking something to grab onto, but though Bucky would have loved to see those hands braced against his own chest, Steve stayed upright, rolling his hips harder and harder, taking Bucky as deep as he could. Then he arched suddenly, bowing backward, bracing himself against Bucky's thighs.

The angle change pushed Bucky's cock even deeper inside Steve's body, and Bucky squeezed Steve's cock, his palm slick with Steve's precome, his thumb swiping across the sensitive head and his fingers occasionally sliding back to tease the generous sac. The sounds coming out of Steve's mouth now were high-pitched and desperate, and Bucky's voice was hoarse as he praised him, murmuring encouragement, urging him on and on, thrusting erratically against the desperate rolls of Steve's hips.

Steve came first, and hard, painting Bucky's chest and neck, his hips jerking and his muscles clenching. Bucky wrung every drop of semen out of him before releasing his cock and gripping his hip, scrambling up onto his knees so that Steve lay limp across his lap. Then, holding on and hoping he wouldn't lose his balance, he began to thrust, pounding into Steve to the accompaniment of the smaller man's soft cries until his own climax hit him. He arched backward, howling, his fingers tightening on Steve's hip as he pressed in as deep as he could and filled the condom.

There was a moment of almost stunned silence when it was over, and they stared at one another, breathing hard. Then Steve pushed himself up onto one elbow, reaching up to wrap the other hand around Bucky's neck and drag him down for a long, searing kiss. “God, I love you,” he whispered when they finally let each other go.

“So much,” Bucky whispered back, pressing his forehead against Steve's. “So fuckin' much, Stevie, you don't even know.”

Steve laughed, flopping down onto his back again and groaning a little bit as Bucky slid out of him. “I know,” he assured his husband. “Trust me. I know.”

***

They staggered out of the apartment around eleven and took the train in to Manhattan. They got lunch from a deli about a block up from Stark Tower and ate it in Bryant Park before finally making their way into the Tower around one o'clock. True to Stark's word, the receptionist in the lobby had Bucky and Steve's names and directed them up to the seventy-second floor. They made their way into Stark's workshop, only to find him consulting with a fluffy-haired man with glasses and a tall, arrogant-looking dark-haired man.

Bucky tapped on the door frame when the aperture slid open. “Hi,” he said when the three men turned.

“Barnes!” Stark exclaimed. “Just the man we were looking for. You're late.”

“You didn't say what time,” Bucky replied.

“Sure I did. I said noon.”

“No, you said afternoon.”

“Did I? I was sure I said noon. Never mind. You're here now. Shirt off, up on the projector, there you go, the good doctors need a look at what we have to work with.” Stark tugged Bucky in by the right arm, pausing to cast a glance at Steve. “Pepper wants to talk art with you. She's in the penthouse. Ninety-six. We'll come get you when we're done. Bye!”

Bucky gave Steve a slightly panicked look over his shoulder as Stark dragged him further into the workshop. Steve watched for a moment, his eyes narrow and calculating as Stark began to tug the tail of Bucky's shirt out of his pants. And then Steve grinned wickedly and waggled his fingers at Bucky in farewell before stepping out into the hallway and heading for the elevator, leaving his husband to his fate.


	4. Chapter 4

When the elevator opened on the ninety-sixth floor, Steve wasn't sure what he was expecting, but whatever it was, it wasn't  _that_ . 

The penthouse was at the top of the tower, where the presence of the landing pad ( _for what?_ Steve wondered) forced the building itself to slant backward, becoming more narrow. Thus, when the elevator opened, Steve found himself stepping out not into a richly appointed hallway with a front door or an entry foyer but actually into the private living room of Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, who was sprawled unglamorously on a pristine white leather sofa, dressed in jeans and a green sweater, her feet bare. She was watching television.

Steve squinted at the flat screen. “Oh my God,” he blurted. “Are you watching Spongebob?”

“If you tell anyone, I will have you murdered in your sleep,” Pepper replied without moving. “Pull up a rock.”

Steve caught sight of a pair of sneakers that had been kicked off near the door; he took his cue from that and toed his own Converse off, dropping his backpack beside them and padding over in his sock feet to curl himself into a massive white leather armchair. He sank into the cushions and sighed softly. “I may never leave this spot,” he said, closing his eyes.

“It is literally the most comfortable furniture I could find at any furniture store in the tri-state area,” Pepper assured him. “I refuse to suffer through uncomfortable furniture simply because it's supposedly fashionable. I do that enough with shoes.”

“Women's shoes are tools of the devil,” Steve replied. “I have done enough drag to be able to swear to that.”

“I bet you make an adorable drag princess,” Pepper said.

“I used to,” Steve replied. “These days I am a ferociously fabulous drag queen, when I take the time.” He opened his eyes and grinned at her. “I may be small, but I'm sassy.”

“I believe it,” Pepper said, laughing softly. “Everything work out okay last night?”

“Oh, yes.” Steve pinched the bridge of his nose. “I'm so sorry about that. We usually try not to have dramatic moments in public.”

“Oh, it's not public when it's just me and Tony,” she said. “I promise, we've had more dramatic moments over what we should have for dinner.”

Steve laughed softly. “Well, then. Yes, we worked it out. Everything's fine. He's now in Tony's custody and I have been assured that he will be delivered to me personally when Tony's done with him. Whenever that might be; he had two other guys in there with him and they all sort of had that manic gleam in their eyes.”

“Oh, God,” Pepper said. “Bruce and Stephen. Dr. Bruce Banner is a physicist; he's the rumpled-looking one. The one who looks at you like a particularly noxious specimen is Dr. Stephen Strange. He's a neurosurgeon. Tony called him in to consult.” She pushed herself up into a sitting position. “Tony had an idea for a neural hookup; I don't really understand all the science of it, because science was never my thing, but from what I could gather, he thinks he can build a bionic arm that would actually interface with Bucky's brain and give him back at least rudimentary touch sensations.”

Steve stared at her, his eyes wide. “Seriously?”

Pepper nodded. “Like I said, I'm a businesswoman. I understand enough of the tech side to sell it to investors when I have to. But I made Tony give it to me in two-syllable words so that I'd know what I was talking about when I talked to you.”

Steve's eyes narrowed a bit. “Why, so you can sell it to me?”

“Not at all,” Pepper replied, shaking her head. “More so that you don't get snowed when _they_ come and try to sell it to you.”

“Huh.” Steve sat back in his chair. “Well, it isn't me they have to sell it to; it's Bucky's arm. If he wants to do it, that's his call.”

She cocked her head, studying him. “You're not what I expected,” she said simply, leaving it to him to decide whether or not that was a good thing. But then she changed the subject. “So, the sculpture you presented last night; that was Bucky, wasn't it?”

Steve nodded. “It was, yes. He sits for me a lot. Complains about it, you know, but I think he secretly enjoys it.”

“Or at the very least he wants to prevent you from finding other handsome young men to sculpt.”

Steve blushed at Pepper's knowing grin. “There may be an element of that,” he admitted. “Not that he has anything to worry about. And he knows that.”

“Have you been together long?” Pepper asked.

Bucky nodded. “We've known each other since we were kids, but we started dating in high school. We got married in October of 2011, just before Bucky shipped out to Afghanistan.”

“Is that where he lost the arm?”

Steve nodded. “Roadside IED. They weren't even in a combat zone.” He closed his eyes against the onslaught of emotion that came with that statement every time he had to make it.

“That would have been... just after the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, wouldn't it?” Pepper asked.

Steve's mouth twisted in a wry grin. “Yeah,” he said, opening his eyes again and swiping at them. “His C.O. had to call me. Bucky'd actually been having trouble with him; he wasn't fond of the idea of having openly gay soldiers in his unit, even though Bucky was one of the best at what he did.” He shook his head. “So he called me. And it was the kind of scene where, if you saw it in a movie, you'd cheer for the hero's plucky little husband, coming out with some kind of sassy line to put the bigoted jerk in his place. But in real life, it doesn't work that way, you know?”

“Yeah,” Pepper agreed softly. “It's hard to come up with witty one-liners when the person you love is fighting for their life.”

“Exactly,” Steve said. He should have known Pepper would understand; there'd been all that business with Tony being abducted not so long ago, hadn't there? “So despite the fact that I could practically hear him sucking on a lemon every time he said the word _husband_ , he manages to tell me that Bucky's been injured and they're flying him to Aviano and if I report to Fort Hamilton with my ID, they'll make arrangements to get me out there to him. So I show up at Fort Hamilton with my ID, and they get me on a transport flight - little me, surrounded by all these huge Army types, it had to be funny to look at - and we spent a month in Italy getting him back on his feet and arranging his discharge and then I brought him home again.”

“Is he... all right now?”

“Are you asking if he has PTSD?” Steve shook his head. “Not much, as far as I can tell, and he's pretty lousy about keeping things from me. He has nightmares once in awhile, but he sees a therapist and he doesn't take medication or anything, and he functions just the same as he did before.”

“Good,” Pepper said decisively. “I'm glad to hear it.”  
  
Steve smiled. “Me, too.”

Pepper stood and stretched. “I am a terrible hostess. Would you care for anything to drink?”

“Sure, what do you have?”

“Hmm.” She wandered across the room and around a counter; Steve followed her and found that she'd gone into a beautifully appointed kitchen. She peered into the refrigerator. “Milk, pomegranate juice, lemonade, water. And Tony keeps a fully stocked bar.”

“Lemonade would be great,” Steve said. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome.” Pepper got glasses and poured for them. “So, you brought art to show me?”

“Oh, of course.” Steve darted across the room to retrieve his backpack, pulling out his sketchbook as he returned. “I brought some studies to show you, sketches and things, where I've got some planned pieces roughed out, and then I also brought photographs of some finished items.” He flipped the sketchbook open to a recent page and pushed it toward Pepper. “That's the piece I'm working on right now, the baby dragon.”

“That is adorable,” Pepper murmured, running a finger across the ink sketch. “Is it that cute in clay?”

Steve grinned. “I think so.”

Pepper turned the page, and began asking him questions about his process. He pulled out photographs that went with the sketches she was looking at, and they left all discussion of everything else behind for awhile.

***

A soft chime interrupted Steve and Pepper in the middle of a spirited discussion on the relative merits of performance art, with a particular focus on Bjork and Lady Gaga. “Mr. Stark requests your presence in his workshop,” JARVIS said.

“We're on our way,” Pepper replied, pushing herself to her feet.

Steve rolled out of the chair he'd been sprawled in, moving toward the door to pull his shoes on. “You're still wrong,” he said, grinning at her.

“Says you,” Pepper replied, grinning back as she retrieved her own shoes. “You can leave your things; we'll come back up after we're done seeing whatever Tony's so proud of.”

“Does he do this a lot?” Steve asked as they stepped into the elevator.

“What, show and tell? All the time.”

“No, I mean...” Steve rubbed at the back of his neck. “Picking up... projects. Like Bucky.”

Pepper canted her head slightly, studying him. “If you're under the impression that Tony has taken Bucky on as a charity case or something, let me clear the air - he hasn't. Tony... well, Tony's essentially a mad genius. His mind is always working, looking for the next angle, the next avenue of creation. It's a lot like art for him. And while he's spent a lot of time in the past focusing on building weapons systems, those have never been his first love. Tony will never admit it out loud, but he really enjoys helping people. Having the opportunity to work directly with someone on a prosthesis like this, especially this kind of a prototype, is something that Tony really appreciates.”

Steve nodded. “So it's as much about Bucky doing him a favor as it is him doing Bucky a favor?”

“Exactly.” Pepper agreed. “I don't want you to worry that this is going to... come back on either of you somehow.”

Steve sighed softly. “I'm sorry. I just... I worry. And we're in a good place, me and Buck, but I was lying in bed last night wondering how much a Stark prototype arm would be worth, and it almost gave me an anxiety attack.”

Pepper laughed softly, reaching out to pat his shoulder. “Don't worry,” she said softly. “On one end of the spectrum you have Tony signing off on the arm and telling Bucky to come back every few months for tune ups; on the other end of the spectrum you have Tony deciding he likes Bucky and wants to be friends. And to be honest, I couldn't tell you which would be the best case scenario and which the worst.”

Steve burst out laughing, and when he followed her off the elevator, his heart was much lighter than it had been. She led him down the hallway, both of them grinning. Steve felt his grin melt into an expression of wide-eyed astonishment when he stepped into the workshop; Bucky was sitting at a table with two arms.

He moved closer to Bucky, his expression unsure as he took in the prosthetic. It was beautifully articulated, a perfect match to his right arm; the only difference was that it was made entirely of metal. From fingertips to the shoulder quarter, which it covered, Bucky's left arm was made of shifting plates of metal, almost like the overlapping scales of a snake. Steve's hand came out almost automatically, reaching for it, and he started slightly in surprise when Bucky reached back with the metal arm. His eyes skimmed up to Bucky's face, and then slightly higher, taking in the odd contraption he was wearing on his head. “Explain,” he said simply.

Bucky gave him a nervous grin. “Okay, so, Dr. Strange is a neurosurgeon, and he and Tony cobbled this thing together. It's actually an improvement on some of the stuff they're already using in trials. It's a neural net. Basically it reads my brain waves and transmits the signals to the arm, the same way as you move your regular arm. See?” He turned the metal hand over, palm up, and twitched the fingers. “It's got pressure sensors and heat and cold sensors, so it's almost like having my arm back again.”

Steve took the metal hand in his, turning it over, examining the way the plates shifted and moved over each other. “You can... you can feel that?” he asked, his voice soft and low.

“Yeah,” Bucky replied, his own voice just as soft. “I can feel you.”

Steve swallowed hard, fighting back the tears that wanted to spring to his eyes. “Bucky, that's amazing.”

Bucky grinned, his own eyes suspiciously bright. “Yeah, well, it gets even more amazing than that.” He pulled Steve toward him and turned them both so that they were facing Stark, Strange, and Banner.

The three scientists were standing not far away, manipulating information being projected up from a holo-table. “Ready?” Stark asked.

“Yeah,” Bucky said, resting both hands on Steve's hips. “Lay it out there so Steve knows the score.”

Tony made a gesture, and the schematic floating in midair exploded, displaying the individual parts. “The arm is bionic,” he explained. “It's literally beyond the top of the line; we actually invented two of the parts this morning.” He paused, rubbing his hands together gleefully. “I love the smell of new patents.”

“Tony,” Pepper said softly from her seat near the doorway. “Stay on topic.”

“Sorry. Right. So, what we're going to do is integrate the whole thing into the musculoskeletal system, and from there into the existing neural network, and when we're done, it's going to be like he was born with it.” He put his hands on his hips and stared at Steve, almost as though expecting applause.

Steve stepped away from Bucky, moving toward the holographic projection and studying it carefully. He paused a few times, turning to look at Bucky with a narrow, calculating expression, and then back again, clearly putting the parts together in his mind. He walked around the projection a couple of times, studying some of the parts in closer detail. Then he spoke. “So what you're telling me is that you're going to surgically attach that thing to his shoulder, and then you're going to wire it into his brain?”

“Essentially, yes,” Dr. Banner replied. 

“And once that's done, assuming you don't kill him in the process or turn him into a vegetable, he'll have two working arms again.”

The three scientists immediately began talking over one another.

“ \- not going to kill him, Jesus - ”

“ \- chances of success are extremely high - ”

“ \- level of risk is actually very low - ”

“ \- know what I'm doing, for Christ's sake - ”

“ \- failure probability of less than four percent - ”

Steve held up a hand to stem the flow of words. He turned and walked back over to Bucky, reaching out to run his fingers from the top of the metal shoulder down to the tip of the metal fingers. Bucky shuddered slightly at the sensation, his eyes holding Steve's. Steve tangled his fingers with the metal ones. “Is this something you want?” he said. “You know the risks better than I do; are you comfortable with them?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “I am. Stark and Strange know what they're doing, and the process isn't entirely experimental. It's just relatively new, and so expensive that most people can't get it.”

Steve nodded. “Okay,” he said simply. “If it's what you want, and you're comfortable with the risk, then I say go for it.”

Bucky reached up with his right hand, catching Steve around the neck and pulling him in for a warm, slow kiss. “Okay,” he murmured once they parted. “Let's do this.”

***

It wasn't instant, no matter how much any of them (especially Stark) might have wanted it to be. The permanent attachment of the prosthesis was a process of multiple surgeries. First, the arm's housing had to be implanted in Bucky's shoulder; once that was totally healed, the shoulder plate that protected and supported the shoulder blade and the chest muscles had to be installed. When that had healed, the arm itself would be attached, and Bucky would have to wear a sling for at least two weeks while his body learned to function with the extra weight on that side. Adjustments might have to be made; if everything wasn't set just so, Bucky's spine, shoulders and hips could be damaged. Only after the physical installation had been completed could the arm be wired into his central nervous system - a process which was similarly fraught with perils, as it would involve actual brain surgery. And of course the process could not begin until the show closed, because Bucky was committed to the  _Jesus Christ Superstar_ run, and he would not be able to work once the surgeries began. 

Steve poured his anxieties into his art, developing an entire series of baby dragon sculptures that Pepper wanted to turn into a collectible set. Natasha was beside herself with glee. Bucky was beyond pleased; he loved it when Steve was working, because Steve himself was so much happier when he was making good art.

At the end of the musical's run, Steve took a couple of days off from sculpting to spend time with the celebrity actress who'd gotten interested in his art on opening night; when he'd brought the photographs of his work that he'd promised, she'd purchased a small sculpture of an elephant on its hind legs that Steve had made a few years back and nearly forgotten about. Then she commissioned him to make two more to go with the first one, and agreed to model for him.

After a great deal of thought, he dressed her up in Grecian robes and planted her on a boulder in the middle of the botanical gardens; she'd make a fantastic Helen of Troy. She was gracious enough to spend an entire afternoon letting him take photographs and make reference sketches; for her own amusement, she posted a Vine of him frantically sketching her, and gave out his website on her Twitter; his site crashed twice that day and his Etsy shop sold out of everything. (Natasha nearly lost her mind over that.)

The next day, Steve spent all day packaging sold items to ship, reordering prints of his paintings, and stocking up on clay. The day after that, Bucky went into the hospital for the first of the surgeries.

***

Almost five months passed between the first surgery and the last one. The attachment of the prosthesis went well. Despite the care taken by the team of surgeons working with Stark, Strange, and Banner, there was significant scarring on Bucky's chest; Steve didn't particularly care, but Bucky was strangely sensitive about it. Steve would catch him staring at the marks around the metal plating with an odd expression, and Bucky asked him more than once for reassurance that he had made the right decision.

Steve couldn't be sure, of course; they wouldn't know that the decision was “right” until the entire process was finished. But he made it a point to remind Bucky that if everything went well, he would have two working arms again, and that even if it didn't, Steve loved him, scars and all.

It snowed on the morning when Bucky went in for the neural hookup.

He was admitted the night before, and Steve stayed with him in the private room Stark had arranged. The nurses never even mentioned the possibility of him leaving; the words  _visiting hours_ were never spoken, and Steve assumed that either Stark or Pepper had made certain that he would be allowed to stay unchallenged. He curled up on the narrow bed with Bucky, running his hands across his husband's shaved scalp. Bucky shivered at the unaccustomed sensation, and Steve leaned down to kiss him warmly. “Love you,” he murmured.

“Love you, too,” Bucky whispered back. He reached up with his right hand, cupping Steve's cheek. “If anything goes wrong tomorrow,” he said, covering Steve's lips with a finger when Steve would have interrupted, “I want you to know this. I love you. I have loved you since junior high school. I will always love you no matter what. It's me and you, Stevie. Till the end of the line.”

Steve leaned down and kissed him again, pouring his heart and soul into the contact between their mouths. “Till the end of the line,” he whispered against Bucky's lips.

They held one another tight, and neither of them slept very much that night.

Bucky was taken into the operating room a little after nine o'clock in the morning. Steve paced in the waiting room, watching the snow fall through the plate glass windows. Their friends drifted in and out - Sam, Clint, Thor, Natasha, other actors, other artists, some of the guys Bucky knew from the Army, even Pepper and Mr. Coulson - checking up on Steve, making sure he was all right, seeing if there was any word. A nurse came out every hour or so to update him, letting him know that everything was proceeding as expected and there were, so far, no complications.

  
The surgery itself was long and difficult, and night had fallen by the time a nurse came to let him know that it was over and Bucky had been moved to observation. “Once he's been cleaned up a little bit and starts to come around, you can come back to see him,” she said. “But I promise that he's okay.”

Steve knew better than to rely on that promise - just because Bucky was alive didn't mean he'd come out with any higher brain functions. Neurosurgery was such an incredibly delicate process, and Strange had explained the risks to Steve in plain language. He continued to pace.

At last, another nurse came to bring Steve back to the recovery room. Bucky looked awful, lying there with bandages wrapped around his head, pale and wan and somehow  _small_ , but Steve perched himself on the edge of the bed beside Bucky's hip anyway, resting his hand on Bucky's stomach and speaking to him in low tones, waiting for those blue eyes to open.

At last they did. Bucky stared at Steve in what looked like confusion for a long moment before reaching up with his right hand, clumsily wiping at the tears on Steve's face. “Don' cry,” he slurred. “'M okay.”

Steve laughed, leaning up to press a gentle kiss to Bucky's lips. “Hey, sweetheart,” he murmured. “How's the head?”

“Foggy,” Bucky admitted. “Good drugs.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. He waited for anything else while a couple of nurses came by to check Bucky's vitals and ask him questions to judge his mental functions. While they were still there, Stark and Strange arrived to test the arm.

They asked him a variety of questions to check his cognition and to help spur him into greater lucidity before Stark finally said, “Okay, we're going to activate it. You ready?”

“Yeah,” Bucky rasped. “Ready.”

Stark reached into Bucky's underarm and did something; the arm twitched, and Bucky's face lit up even through the drug haze. “Jesus,” he whispered.

“Can you feel it?” Strange asked.

“Yeah,” Bucky said. He looked down, raising both his hands together. He turned them over, opening and closing his fingers, and stared in awe as the left and right hands both worked together, seamless and perfect. “Holy shit.”

“Looks good,” Stark said. “Let's give it a quick sensory test.”

Bucky reached for Steve. Steve caught the metal hand in both of his, watching Bucky's eyes flutter shut at the sensation. “There you are,” he whispered. “Steve.”

Steve bent, pressing a gentle kiss to the center of Bucky's metal palm. “You feel that?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Bucky murmured. “Yeah, I can feel that.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you made it to this point, thank you so much for coming along! I hope you all enjoyed the story. Please feel free to leave comments; I love hearing from people!


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